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Children’s palliative care is an integral part of the new strategy on palliative care currently being developed. In addition to representatives of palliative care for children and young people on the Strategy Steering Group, we have established a Children and Young People’s Working Group to develop new actions which will contribute to meeting the needs of children and young people and their families.

The Scottish Government does not hold central information on NHS boards’ provision of 24/7 end of life care at home for children.

The Scottish Ambulance Service is currently in the final stages of evaluating the work of the Integrated Clinical Hub (ICH) across 2023 and this evaluation will be shared with Scottish Government.

As set out in answer S6W-26209 on 19 April 2024, the information requested on how many cancer nurses have been employed in each year since 2011-12, broken down by NHS board area is not centrally available. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The future investment in our transport network will be set out in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) Delivery Plan. This will align with the sustainable mode and investment hierarchies. New roads projects will normally only be taken forward where they reduce the maintenance backlog; address road safety concerns or adapt the network to deal with the impacts of climate change or benefit communities such as bypassing settlements.

The impact of climate change is built into Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) with a specific Climate Change criteria introduced in the latest update. As part of this approach two transport modelling scenarios in transport appraisal ensure that the 20% car km reduction target is a key part of the appraisal of transport projects, including road project appraisal. As such, climate change impacts are a key part of our investment decision making processes, including prioritising investment in line with the sustainable investment hierarchy.

We will publish a final 20% reduction in car use route map by autumn 2024 which includes a timeline for implementing demand management. This will include consideration of how local government action can further incentivise the switch to EVs in addition to reducing overall car km.

We will carefully consider the UK Climate Change Committee report recommendations and provide a Scottish Government response in due course.

Budgets for Modern and Foundation Apprenticeships for 2024-25 have been agreed and there are currently no plans to review the contribution rates.

Scottish Government (SG) officials have met with Professor Sir Michael Marmot on various occasions during the period April 2021 - April 2024. Professor Marmot’s evidence-based approach to tackle health inequalities underpins the work of our Care and Wellbeing Portfolio and so each engagement has offered important insights into Professor Marmot’s work, helping to inform future policy development.

On 28 June 2022 Government officials met with Professor Marmot to discuss Scottish Government’s Place and Wellbeing Programme and the Care and Wellbeing Portfolio, more broadly, as well as to garner insights into the Marmot cities approach. Since then, officials have engaged with Professor Marmot as part of last year’s Public Health Scotland (PHS) Conference held on 28 November 2023. This included both a short meeting between Professor Marmot and the Permanent Secretary during the conference, plus an evening event in which senior SG officials alongside PHS, Local Government and NHS colleagues discussed priorities to improve Scotland’s health and tackle health inequalities.

In June 2023, SG and PHS soft launched the Care and Wellbeing dashboard as a source of data and intelligence to support the ambitions of the Care & Wellbeing Portfolio. This is structured around the evidence-based Marmot framework Fair Society Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review) - IHE (instituteofhealthequity.org) which looks at the wider social determinants of health, the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age which can lead to health inequalities. Work is underway to integrate this into the Scottish Public Health Observatory ScotPHO profiles (shinyapps.io) (ScotPHO) Online Profiles tool, as a distinct Care and Wellbeing profile, to provide a single repository of public health intelligence to support local action to tackle health inequalities.

The Scottish Government remains eager to learn more from Professor Marmot’s work in our wider ambition to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities.

Transport Scotland is not the procuring authority for the Ardrossan Harbour Re-Development Project, this is the responsibility of Peel Ports Group as the statutory harbour authority. Transport Scotland has as part of the design and planning stage; and as part of the business case cost exercise review appointed external consultants to undertake work.

Since 2016 Transport Scotland has appointed Peter Brett Associates for the 2016/2017 STAG report, MacWilliams Consulting for a project gateway review process; Turner and Townsend in 2023 for the cost estimate review and Morton Fraser MacRoberts (previously MacRoberts Solicitors) in relation to the work on the legal and commercial agreements which are ongoing.

In 2023, SG published its Vision for Scotland’s Public Electric Vehicle Charging Network , highlighting the need for a transition towards a public charging network that is largely financed and delivered by the private sector. In late 2024 we will publish an Implementation Plan identifying the key actions be taken to deliver our Vision in response to the UK CCC recommendation.

This Implementation Plan will include a route map for delivering approximately 24,000 additional public charge points by 2030 and will be developed in partnership with key stakeholders who share collective responsibility for delivering public EV charging across Scotland and outline an agreed set of actions to meet Scotland’s needs, including the needs of rural and island communities.

The Scottish Government consulted on its Report into the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance last year. The report outlines the Scottish Government’s position on maintaining the balance of parliamentary, administrative and judicial roles in decision making on environmental matters. However, the Scottish Government will continue to engage with stakeholders – including those who provided evidence to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee – on environmental governance and environmental justice.